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Roar's Berisha sidelined by mystery injury

Brisbane's Besart Berisha will see a specialist to diagnose the mysterious abdominal injury which forced his late withdrawal from Friday night's A-League clash with Melbourne Heart and is set to sideline the star striker indefinitely.

Back-to-back losses have left Brisbane desperately needing to get its season back on track against the last-placed Heart.

It won't be so easy though with Berisha, the Roar's No.1 leading scorer, on the sidelines for an unknown period.

Mystified Roar coach Rado Vidosic revealed his Albanian international faced an indefinite stint on the sidelines until specialists could determine the cause of shooting pains in his abdomen which have the usually bouncy Berisha "down in the dumps".

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"He's no good. He's still having pain in his abdomen," Vidosic said after Berisha struggled through training on Thursday morning.

The A-League's golden boot winner of last season has had a series of cortisone injections in a bid to have him right for the highly-anticipated November 16 clash with Sydney FC and its superstar, Alessandro Del Piero, at Suncorp Stadium.

Berisha has been struggling with an abdominal injury for a month but, so far all his scans including an MRI have failed to detect any soft-tissue problem.

"Once we know more after this injection ... (we will decide) if we need to send him to a surgeon," Vidosic said.

"Nothing came up on any ultrasounds or MRIs or anything - it was all negative.

"It's having an effect on his training. You can see he is really down because he feels like he's letting the team down.

"He's not. We can play without him - we can survive without him until we know what his problem is."

Vidosic would not reveal his hand with a number of options available, including pushing German whiz Thomas Broich forward or playing Ben Halloran, Henrique or even 20-year-old Nick Fitzgerald in Berisha's spot.